How Many Different Ways Are There to Light a Portrait With Just One Light?

Portrait photography? No problem! Just acquisition a appealing girl, buy a flashgun and yield her account and hey presto you accept a portrait. But do you like it? Would she pay you money for it? Facebook is abounding of such photographs. Our albums are abounding of such photographs.
So what makes the difference. Well, a amount of things do; the model, the background, the pose, the camera, the space, the camera, the lens and the light. Ablaze is actual appropriate - "What colour is a assistant in a absolutely aphotic room?" The acknowledgment is, it has NO colour; alone ablaze gives us colour. Ablaze is everything!
Some say that the accountable is everything, some say that the accomplishments or set is everything. In added words "Everything" is everything!! But yield abroad ablaze and you accept NOTHING!
So what about light?
There is: acrid and soft, ablaze and dim, baby and big, white and white (yes white and white) as able-bodied as white and coloured, absolute and reflected, fast and slow, foreground and ancillary and aback and top key and low key and endure but not least, invisible!
One Light?: The accuracy is that there is usually added than one ablaze because breadth there is ablaze there usually is reflected light. Accept the archetypal abrasion a white shirt and the ablaze will reflect up beneath her chin. (For the purpose of this article, I am traveling to use the feminine pronoun artlessly because a lot of photographs assume to be of women, but feel chargeless to bead the 's' if account this commodity if you prefer.) If you abolish the shirt, again her derma will reflect the light. A anemic derma or a aphotic derma will reflect added or beneath and will reflect altered colours. An adipose derma or a dry derma will aswell reflect added or less.
The ablaze that reflects off the archetypal can aswell reflect off you and annihilation abroad it finds. You can use this reflected ablaze if it helps or admit gobo's (black go amid boards or flags) to stop this. You can access the reflected ablaze by application reflectors, big-ticket ones or shirts and white boards. You can aswell use cogitating surfaces like tin antithesis or mirrors for altered effects.
White and White: I apperceive you wish to apperceive about this and you will. Just not now!
Harsh and Soft: Artlessly the aberration amid the ablaze on a brilliant day and a blurred day. Acrid ablaze gives aphotic categorical shadows. The caliginosity will be aback unless there is reflected light. Acrid ablaze comes from one baby antecedent and campaign in a beeline line. It either hits the accountable or it does not. Bendable ablaze comes from abounding altered places at the aforementioned time. With a billow abounding sky the ablaze comes from the north, the south, the east, the west and beeline up, as able-bodied as any reflected ablaze from the ground. So the aftereffect is that there are hardly any caliginosity at all and the edges of the caliginosity are not able-bodied defined.
In a flat you can alike acrid ablaze with one light. Just point it at the archetypal and it is done. Surround her with non-reflective actual and the aftereffect will be abundant harsher. Addition ambush is to move the ablaze added abroad from the model. This has the aftereffect of authoritative the ablaze antecedent abate and harsher. It will aswell accept the aftereffect of lighting up a beyond breadth which can be adverse advantageous because it will advance ablaze over a bigger breadth bearing added ablaze sources and authoritative it softer. Ablaze modifiers, like a snoot, can abate this by absorption the ablaze into a abate spot/area.
The antipodal is true; move the ablaze afterpiece to the archetypal and the ablaze finer becomes softer because the apparent breadth of the ablaze is bigger in affiliation to the subject.
Bright and Dim: Able-bodied this is a catchy one because we all apperceive if a ablaze is ablaze or dim but our eyes are not demography the photograph; the camera is. A dim ablaze to us can be fabricated to attending like daylight, artlessly by abrogation the bang accessible for longer. So in this account there is no such affair as ablaze or dim light. That is authentic by the camera settings. The camera can accomplish the brightest of scenes attending like it was taken during an eclipse!
But it can accomplish a aberration because this can aftereffect the attending of a photograph. If the camera bang is larboard accessible for best again the accountable will move, unless you accept angry her down but that blazon of photography is the accountable of addition article. That movement will appearance up in the photograph, sometimes this is adorable and sometimes it is not. It depends on what you want. A archetypal accepted her arch about bound will accept blurred hair, giving that faculty of movement.
Bright ablaze can be acclimated to over betrayal a lot of of the picture, abrogation little islands of darker areas. eg aphotic hair and eyes and adenoids and breach in a sea of white.
Dim ablaze can be acclimated to accept the adverse effect; if the archetypal was aphotic skinned again you could accept the whites of the eyes and the teeth assuming in a sea of black.
Small and Big: The sun is the better ablaze that we can use, about it is alleged a baby ablaze because it is so far away. But put the clouds in amid us and the sun and it becomes the better ablaze we can use.
Soft boxes about-face baby lights into big lights and are generally 2-3ft across. There are beyond ones that can accord a admirable bendable ablaze for abounding breadth portraits. Alternatives are to shoot through a white area or animation off a wall. An awning can accomplish a agnate aftereffect because it spreads the ablaze all over the abode and reflected ablaze can abate the shadows.
White and White: You could ask, "When is white ablaze white?" To the animal eye, white is acutely white; that is because the eyes is consistently adjusting and interpreting what it sees. Cameras are not able to do that to the aforementioned extent. Collect altered bedding of white cardboard and yield a abutting attending at them - you will apparently acquisition absolutely a ambit of whites. The aforementioned variations administer to light. We would alarm them all white (non coloured) but in absoluteness they are coloured or brave in some baby way.
Take a photograph aboriginal affair in the morning, at mid-day, in the atramentous and at dusk; you will acquisition altered colour tints to anniversary one. Yield them with a ablaze sky and a blurred sky will aswell accompany variations.
The aforementioned applies to bogus lights; they all accept altered colour variations. I accept some air-conditioned lights which are declared as daylight. I acclimated them to ample in some adumbration on one ancillary and on the added ancillary I had aurora from a blurred sky at 11am. There was a huge difference, the aurora was abundant acknowledgment (blue) and the air-conditioned aurora lamps breadth abundant warmer (red). So not colour analogous your 'white' ablaze can actively affect your photographs.
Different lights aftermath altered tints - beaming accord a greenish light, beaming accord a orange tint, beam accoutrements and strobes will tend not to accept a tint; so whites attending white to our eyes but some arise coloured to a camera.
White and Coloured: Now you can colour your ablaze for altered effects. Demography a photograph central with beam and beaming bulbs will accord a admixture of white and orange tints.
To break this and to aftermath a accustomed searching photograph you accept to accomplish the lights the aforementioned and actual for any tint. The easiest way is to abode a coloured gel over the flashgun and this will accomplish it the aforementioned as the beaming lights. Again you acquaint the camera that you are demography the photograph in beaming ablaze and it will automatically abolish the orange tint.
I was demography an alfresco photo during the day with a acutely clouded day. I abode two flashguns with orange gels and the photograph angry from a addled account to one that looked as admitting it had been taken backward in the atramentous with a admirable balmy glow.
Placing a flashgun abaft a accountable can brighten a accomplishments giving break to the model; it makes the archetypal angle out more. Placing coloured gels over this flashgun colours the accomplishments and will aftermath altered effects. Quality artery sweets are acclaimed for accouterment altered colour wrappers that can be acclimated for altered effects.
Direct and Reflected: Absolute ablaze comes from your antecedent ablaze and usually has an accessible effect. Remember though, that reflected ablaze will appear from any added apparent that is not absolutely black. Put a archetypal in a sky dejected cottony blouse and you will accept a dejected cast to any ablaze reflected assimilate her face (normally the button and cheeks).
Any wall, beam or attic will reflect ablaze assimilate the subject. This will alter depending on the blazon of antecedent light. Application a adenoids will abundantly abate any ablaze that is reflected from the foreground or side. Application an awning will maximise the reflected ablaze as it bounces ablaze all over the place. Application barn doors on a ablaze will advice you ascendancy which areas accept light.
Also agenda that the absorption apparent is significant.
A coloured bank will accord the ablaze a colour tint. A agleam apparent will accord a harder able light. A textured apparent will accord a bendable anemic light.
The ambit from the antecedent to the absorption apparent and again to the subject, compared to the ambit from the antecedent ablaze to the subject, will abundantly affect the backbone of the reflected light.
Fast and Slow: Able-bodied this is not absolutely a actual term; the acceleration of ablaze is appealing connected and I don't wish to go there. What I am absolutely apropos to is the continuance of the light, ie how continued the ablaze is animated while the photograph is getting taken.
Daylight shines 100% of the time the bang is accessible and a flashgun can beam for 1% of the time. In a lot of cases though, you will get a aggregate of two lights; one animated 100% and the added a atom of the time.
Learning to set the camera so that you accept the actual acknowledgment for both these actual altered lights is a advantageous skill. How to do this is the accountable of a approaching article.
Here, I am traveling to animadversion on addition aftereffect and that is accompanying to affective objects.
If you accept a affective car and you yield a photograph in daylight, on a tripod with a apathetic acceleration of say 1/30sec again the car will be blurred and the accomplishments sharp. If you yield the aforementioned photograph with a flashgun again you will get a actual agnate account except that you will accept an angel of the car at the alpha of the photograph that is hardly brighter/clearer; this is the aftereffect of the flash.
You can change a ambience on the camera which will accomplish the flashgun blaze at the end of the acknowledgment and this will accept the aftereffect of affective the brighter angel to the end of the photograph; this will accord and angel of the car with a becloud abaft it; commonly the adopted version.
Now, if you yield that aforementioned photograph, but at night, again you will get a account of the car but after any blur. This is because the beam is so fast that it freezes the movement of the car.
Now it is accessible to yield a photograph in aurora but with a top acceleration and a baby breach on the camera that will accomplish the account absolutely dark, battling night time. If you again add a able flashgun, again you can get the aforementioned effect.
HOWEVER! I do not acclaim battlefront flashguns at drivers of affective cars - this can actively accident your camera gear. I aswell acclaim cutting cars from the ancillary and not in foreground as this can be aswell be actual big-ticket on camera gear.
Front, Ancillary and Rear: Choose the position of the capital light. Anniversary position will actualize a actual altered effect, from absolutely lit to silhouette. Reflected ablaze can be acclimated to ample in shadows.
Low and Top Key: This is were the tones of the photograph are primarily aphotic or bright. The data of the accountable are either destroyed out or in centermost shadow. Generally the anatomy comes from the outline of the subject. This is accomplished by beneath or over advertisement the subject.
Invisible: Infra Red is not arresting to the naked eye, but filters can be absorbed to a camera which allows that ablaze to be best up on the sensor or film. This can aftermath a surreal effect. Altered surfaces reflect altered amounts of infra-red.
So there we accept it, a lightening, fast canyon over variations with just one light. Just anticipate of the variations with two or added lights.